It is with deep sadness and grief that we announce the death of our beloved peer, co-worker, and friend, Marx Vilaire Aristide. Sunday morning, June 20th our dear friend and brother died. He and his fiancé were involved in a car accident Saturday evening and he died while in surgery on Sunday.

Marx was a true intellectual revolutionary, that beautiful combination that few can master and sustain with real honesty. He had the intellectual integrity that pushed him to create alternatives even when the already existing alternatives had been created by his colleagues and friends. He knew what critical analysis was and he worked to engage others in it. Marx was also an established economist who worked all of his adult life for a better world, constantly challenging all whom he came in contact with. For many years he worked at the Quixote Center and the Washington Office on Haiti to challenge US foreign policy. While living in Haiti he continued to push for alternatives to neo-liberal economics and policies and worked with the Haitian poor to encourage more mass involvement. Recently he worked as a consultant to many organizations such as the Haiti Support Project, the International Labor Rights Fund, and ourselves, EPICA. In fact, he had just returned from leading an EPICA fact finding delegation to Haiti and was in the process of writing a historical outline of Haiti from 1991 to the present. Marx had dreams of moving back to Haiti and of creating something that everyday people could participate in and sustain in order to build a more just world for themselves and their communities. This led him to found the Haitian American Skill SHARE Foundation which he envisioned as a vehicle to reverse the effects of the brain drain on Haiti. He hoped to encourage Haitians in the US to return to Haiti and train their brothers and sisters in order to better develop the nation.

Marx was a grand and dynamic man who stood for truth, justice, and integrity. His role in our lives and in the world will be hard to fill. But we hope that all of you who were touched by him will humbly try to contribute to his dream of building a sovereign and free Haiti. He will be greatly missed by us all.

THANK YOU MVA!

He used to joke and introduce himself as Marx Aristide, not related to Karl Marx and neither to Jean Bertrand Aristide. He really loved his opening line!

On the far left, Marx Vilaire Aristide, 37 years old.